Libby Prison, in Richmond, Va., was notorious in the U.S. Civil War. Federal officers were confined there by the Confederates, often in conditions of dreadful overcrowding; it was the scene of a mass escape by tunnel in 1864, and two subsequent Federal cavalry raids to rescue prisoners. Flashman’s reference seems to suggest that he was confined there himself; no doubt examination of those packets of his papers as yet unopened will confirm this.
Kibroth-Hattaavah—“there they buried the people that lusted” (Numbers 11:34, 35)—seems to have been a popular subject for sermons at public schools. Dr Rowlands preached on this text in Eric, or Little by Little, by Dean Farrar.
It is just possible that the orator was Karl Marx. The Strackenzian coronation must have taken place before his recorded return to Germany from Brussels, where he had conceived the Communist Manifesto, but it is not inconceivable that he visited Strackenz beforehand. The coronation certainly offered a tempting target at a time when European politics generally were in a precarious state. Against the fact that there is no evidence of his ever having visited the duchy, must be balanced Flashman’s description of the orator, which is Marx to the life.
Eider Danes, a faction who wished to make Schleswig Danish as far as the River Eider. Von Starnberg’s concern about pro-Danish militant organisations in Strackenz is understandable, as is his anxiety over Hansen’s unexpected appearance at the wedding. What struck the editor as curious was that none of Bismarck’s conspirators seem ever to have been alarmed at the prospect of Danish royalty attending the ceremony; that surely would have led to Flashman’s exposure. But obviously none did attend, and this can only be explained by the fact that King Christian of Denmark died on January 20, 1848—shortly before the wedding took place—and that this kept the Danish Court at home, in mourning. A rare stroke of luck for the conspiracy; one does not like to think it was anything else.
“Punch” stayed neutral in the checked-or-striped trousers controversy. One of its cartoons suggested that “checks are uncommon superior, but stripes is most nobby”. But it was a middle- rather than an upper-class debate.
Flashman believes he sang the old nursery rhyme in English, yet it is interesting to note (see Opie’s Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes) that it appeared in German, apparently for the first time in that language, in 1848 (“So reiten die Herren auf ihren stolzen Pferden, tripp trapp, tripp trapp, tripp trapp”) the year in which he and the Duchess Irma were married. Possibly she had noticed after all.
Domenico Angelo Tremamondo (1717–1804), known as Angelo, founded a dynasty of fencing-masters who conducted an academy of arms in London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Revolution swept across Europe in those early months of 1848. Within the space of a few weeks revolts took place in Sicily, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, and Poland; new constitutions and reforms were adopted in Naples, Tuscany, Piedmont, Rome, Budapest, and Berlin, and the Communist Manifesto appeared. In Britain a Chartist petition was unsuccessful, and John Stuart Mill produced the Principles of Political Economy.
Presumably Flashman is referring to David’s highly romantic painting of Napoleon in the Alps, and confusing it with other works by the same artist in which the Emperor is shown with retinues of suitably respectful subordinates.
There is some confusion about Lola Montez’s movements during her final weeks in Munich; more than once she changed her mind about leaving, and made efforts to re-establish her hold over Ludwig. As to her walk through the hostile crowd, it is mentioned by at least one authority, and there is no doubt that the incident of her appearance on the balcony, splendidly dressed and toasting a raging crowd in champagne, is authentic. Her indifference to physical danger was remarkable.
And in the end Bismarck got his way; by waging war on Denmark in 1864 he achieved the occupation of Schleswig by Prussia and Holstein by Austria, thus helping to provoke the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. With Austria defeated as a rival, Bismarck by the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 united Germany minus Austria, and Schleswig and Holstein became part of the German Empire.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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George MacDonald Fraser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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